The Media Copilot

The Media Copilot
  • 5.0 (6)
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  • Updated Weekly

Hosted by journalist Pete Pachal, The Media Copilot is a weekly conversation with smart people on how AI is changing media, journalism, and the news.

  1. 3d ago

    The Scraper Economy is already here. Publishers just aren’t getting paid.

    As AI systems increasingly rely on publisher content to answer questions, a new marketplace for information has quietly emerged. The problem? Publishers are barely part of it. This episode is sponsored by: Adobe Acrobat On this episode of The Media Copilot podcast, host Pete Pachal sits down with Jonathan Woahn to zero in on a part of the AI content ecosystem that’s just out of sight. The conversation explores the fast-growing “scraper economy,” where data brokers, indexing companies, and AI infrastructure providers are quietly monetizing access to the web at massive scale while traditional publishers struggle to establish sustainable licensing models. With this gray market of internet data growing, how can publishers both protect their content and take advantage of the now billion-dollar demand for it? Pete and Jonathan also explore: • Why the social contract between Google and publishers has fundamentally changed • The rise of ethically sourced data and whether AI companies will eventually care where content comes from • Why inference markets may become far more valuable than model training • How publishers should think about MCPs, AI infrastructure, and product strategy • Whether a legitimate marketplace for AI content licensing can actually emerge before scraper economics dominate the ecosystem Along the way, Jonathan shares how his company, Cashmere, is helping publishers structure, license, and deploy content for AI systems while quietly brokering relationships between content owners and companies looking for legal, high quality access to trusted information. Why this matters: As generative AI continues reshaping how audiences consume information, the future of publishing may depend on whether media companies can establish sustainable economic models around their content before gray-market scraping ecosystems become the default infrastructure layer of the internet. This conversation goes beyond AI hype and digs into the economics, legal gray areas, and technical realities quietly redefining the relationship between publishers, platforms, and information itself. About the 👤 Guest   Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanwoahn/  Website: https://cashmere.io/  Company Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/cashmereio  Manifesto:  https://cashmere.io/manifesto  Sponsor: The new Adobe productivity agent orchestrates tools and models to generate images, text and rich content like presentations, podcasts and social posts, while also powering conversational PDF editing in Acrobat. With new PDF Spaces capabilities, users can combine files, links and notes into interactive, shareable spaces for research, collaboration and content creation. VICE News, Kid Cudi and celebrity event planner Mindy Weiss are already using these tools to build trust and deeper engagement with their audiences. Link: Do that with Acrobat: AI-Powered PDF workspaces | Adobe Acrobat About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube? Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel. For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit mediacopilot.ai. Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team  Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0 All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

    43 min

  2. May 14

    AI won’t save Local News. But it might reinvent it.

    Local journalism is collapsing under old business models. The next version may be more dependent on AI than most newsrooms are ready to admit. By The Copilot Can AI help rebuild local journalism before the economics of the industry completely break? Axios does.  On this episode of The Media Copilot podcast, Pete Pachal speaks to Allison Murphy, COO of Axios, to explore how Axios Local is experimenting with AI-driven newsroom operations, “hyperlocal” expansion, and lean reporting teams designed to scale across hundreds of communities. The needle to thread: how to produce high-quality local journalism without sacrificing editorial standards. From AI-assisted social publishing and newsroom training to experimental tools like the “Axiomizer” and “Localizer,” the conversation goes beyond vague AI hype and into the real mechanics of how modern media organizations are adapting in real time. Murphy also explores newsroom trust, AI transparency, audience skepticism, regional expansion strategy, and the growing financial pressure forcing publishers to rethink how journalism can remain sustainable in the modern media economy. “The fundamental challenge with local journalism now is a financial one. We are looking at how we can bring the cost of delivering really high quality, originally reported journalism and news and information to many, many communities.” Murphy argues that the future of local news depends on finding the right balance between human expertise and technological efficiency before the economics of the industry become impossible to sustain. What We Cover:  • Why Axios sees AI as essential to saving local journalism economics • How one reporter and “half reporter” cities are changing newsroom models • The role of AI in reporting workflows, editing, planning, and social distribution • Why Axios believes human reporters remain core to its journalism • The rise of AI-enabled newsroom operations and internal employee training • What media companies still misunderstand about AI adoption • Reader trust, transparency, and AI disclosure experiments • The future of audience growth and media discovery in an AI ecosystem • Why local journalism may become more scalable than ever before Why this matters: Most conversations about AI in the media stay theoretical. This one gets operational. Axios is actively testing what an AI-enabled newsroom looks like at scale—not in a lab, but across real communities with real reporters and real business pressures. As local journalism continues to shrink nationwide, the stakes are bigger than newsroom efficiency. They’re about whether sustainable local reporting can exist at all in the next decade. For anyone working in journalism, media strategy, publishing, audience growth, or AI product development, this episode offers one of the clearest looks yet at how a modern newsroom is trying to adapt before the industry’s financial realities force even harder choices. About the 👤 Guest   • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonmmurphy  • Axios official site: https://www.axios.com  About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube? Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel. For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit mediacopilot.ai. Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team  Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0 All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

    47 min

  3. Apr 24

    How AI is changing B2B media

    In a world of fewer clicks and higher stakes, B2B media is being rebuilt around outcomes, not impressions. The media industry has spent years optimizing for clicks, traffic, and scale. But in B2B, the stakes are different. A single decision can involve millions of dollars and require input from 5 to 15 stakeholders. That changes everything about how content is created, distributed, and measured. At the same time, AI is reshaping how audiences discover information. Fewer clicks. More summaries. More intermediaries. Which means fewer chances to capture attention, but higher stakes when you do. That’s the shift happening in media that’s beneath the surface of headlines about lawsuits and AI slop. In this episode of The Media Copilot podcast, host Pete Pachal talks with Keith Turco, CEO of Madison Logic, to unpack the shift to better understand how AI is changing not just media, but B2B publishers. The result is a fundamental shift:  Quality over quantity. Precision over reach. Outcomes over impressions. For publishers, marketers, and media operators, this is not just a trend. It is a structural change in how value is created. What we cover Why B2B media is moving from impressions to performance-driven outcomesThe rise of buying groups and how they reshape content strategyWhat “geek chic” means and why measurement is now the differentiatorHow AI acts as a “refiner,” not a replacement, in marketing workflowsThe shift from one-to-many messaging to one-to-one and one-to-few targetingWhy podcasts and audio are becoming critical in the B2B media mixHow the “at-work state of mind” blurs personal and professional media consumptionWhat publishers are still getting wrong about ROI and measurementWhy niche, high-intent audiences are more valuable than everThe growing role of multi-channel strategies across CTV, social, and audio About the 👤 Guest   https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithturco/  Learn more about Madison Logic: 🌐 https://www.madisonlogic.com/ 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/madison-logic/ 🐦 https://twitter.com/MadisonLogic  About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube?  Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel. For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit MediaCopilot.ai. Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team  Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0 All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

    34 min

  4. Apr 8

    The Real Battle in AI Isn’t Capability. It’s Trust.

    Why the future of generative media may hinge on who owns the data and who gets paid for it. Generative AI can now create high-quality images and videos in seconds. But as the technology accelerates, a more fundamental question is emerging: Can AI-generated media ever be trusted at scale? In this episode of The Media Copilot, Pete Pachal speaks with Dr. Yair Adato, founder and CEO of Bria, about a growing divide in the AI ecosystem. On one side are models trained on vast, scraped datasets. On the other are systems built around licensed data, attribution, and control. At stake is not just quality, but ownership, accountability, and the future economics of creativity. Why This Matters The generative AI boom has largely focused on what these models can do. Less attention has been paid to how they are built and who benefits. As brands, media companies, and enterprises begin to integrate AI into real workflows, concerns around copyright, likeness rights, deepfakes, and data ownership are no longer theoretical. They are operational risks. This conversation reframes the debate: The future of AI may depend less on better models and more on building systems that businesses can actually trust. What We Cover  • Why “brand-safe” AI is becoming a business requirement, not a feature • The case for licensed data and a new attribution-driven data economy • How generative AI could reshape ownership and compensation for creators • Why visual AI presents higher stakes than text models • The limits of current models and the push toward greater control and transparency • How enterprises are integrating AI into real production workflows • The tension between automation and creativity in media and storytelling • Why AI will handle the “average” and humans will still define what is exceptional Notable Insight “This is by far the most advanced technology humanity has created,” says Dr.  Adato. “…and it took six years, not fifty.” About the 👤 Guest   LinkedIn:  linkedin.com/in/yair-adato-4936b236  Americans for Ben-Gurion University feature https://americansforbgu.org/generative-ai/ Bria (official site) https://bria.ai Bria AI LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/briaai  Bria AI Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bria.ai Bria AI Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BriaAI About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube?  Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel. For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit MediaCopilot.ai.Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

    37 min

  5. Mar 26

    Can You Certify Good AI use? This Organization Thinks So

    As AI reshapes journalism and media, Richard Murphy of the Alliance for Audited Media explains why the industry needs actual standards. AI is no longer experimental in media. It is operational. From drafting articles to generating images to influencing distribution, artificial intelligence is now embedded across the entire content pipeline in many organizations. But as adoption accelerates, trust is breaking down just as fast. In this episode of The Media Copilot, Pete Pachal talks with Richard Murphy, CEO of the Alliance for Audited Media, to unpack a growing industry response: ethical AI certification. Murphy explains how publishers, advertisers, and audiences are all asking the same question in different ways:  How do we know what is real, who created it, and whether we can trust it? The answer, at least in part, may lie in standards. Drawing from AAM’s newly developed framework, Murphy walks through the pillars of responsible AI use, from transparency and disclosure to human oversight and data protection. The goal is not to slow innovation, but to create guardrails that keep media credible in an era where AI can generate anything. Why This Matters Media has always relied on trust as its currency. AI is testing that foundation. When audiences cannot tell whether content is human-created, AI-assisted, or fully synthetic, credibility becomes fragile. At the same time, advertisers and partners are demanding proof that what they are funding or distributing meets ethical standards. This is where certification enters the picture. Ethical AI frameworks are quickly becoming more than best practice. They are positioning themselves as a competitive advantage, a compliance strategy, and potentially a defense against future regulation. The bigger shift is this: AI is not just changing how content is created.  It is redefining what accountability looks like in media. What we cover What “ethical AI certification” actually means in practiceThe 8 pillars of responsible AI use in media organizationsWhy disclosure is moving from optional to essentialThe difference between AI-assisted vs fully AI-generated contentWhere most trust failures are happening todayWhy self-regulation may be the industry’s best shot before government interventionHow AI is impacting not just content creation, but distribution and business modelsThe growing role of advertisers, partners, and audiences in demanding transparency About the 👤 Guest   LinkedIn (Personal Profile):  https://www.linkedin.com/in/rmurphy01 AAM Leadership Bio: https://auditedmedia.com/about/leadership Alliance for Audited Media): https://auditedmedia.com Digital Content Next (Articles): https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/author/richmurphy/ About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube?  Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel. For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit MediaCopilot.ai. Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team . Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0 All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

    46 min

  6. Mar 19

    When AI changes discovery, who still gets paid?

    AI is reshaping how people search, shop, and consume information and that shift is starting to challenge the business models that have supported media for decades. In this episode of The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal sits down with Colin Jeavons, Founder and Chairman of Nomix Group, to explore what happens when AI becomes the middle layer between publishers and their audiences. From the collapse of traditional ad economics to the rising value of trust, this conversation breaks down how discovery is evolving, why some publishers may struggle to adapt, and where new opportunities are emerging across commerce, subscriptions, and AI-driven experiences. What we cover • How AI is changing search, discovery, and media economics • Why CPM-based advertising is under pressure • The growing importance of trust in content • The future of subscriptions and micropayments • How commerce and AI shopping may evolve • What publishers need to rethink right now Takeaways The old web rewarded volume. The next era may reward credibility. In Jeavons’ view, AI is speeding up a market correction that was already underway. Publishers built around commodity content and low value ad impressions face increasing risk. But organizations that create trusted reporting, specialized expertise, or high intent commerce content may still have a path forward. The future, he suggests, will not be defined by whether AI destroys publishing. It will be defined by which publishers learn how to operate in a world where attention is filtered through intelligent systems, trust carries a premium, and audiences are willing to pay for what feels indispensable. About the 👤 Guest   🔗 Colin Jeavons  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinjeavons/ 🔗 Nomix Group Website: https://nomix.group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nomix-group/ About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube?  Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel. For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit MediaCopilot.ai. Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team  Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0 All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

    50 min

  7. Mar 12

    Search is Changing Fast. Is Your Brand Ready for the Answer Engine Era?

    Search is changing fast, and AI is at the center of it. Search is no longer just about blue links and ranking on Google. More and more, people are getting their answers directly from AI tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and other answer engines that summarize information, pull citations, and decide what gets surfaced in real time. That means visibility is changing, and so is the value of content. In this episode of The Media Copilot, Pete Pachal speaks with Josh Blyskal, who leads answer engine optimization research at Profound, a company focused on tracking how brands appear inside AI generated answers. Their conversation explores what answer engine optimization really means, how it differs from traditional SEO, and why specificity, utility, and structure now matter more than ever. What We Cover  • The shift from traditional search results to AI generated answers • What answer engine optimization (AEO) actually means • How AI tools break prompts into “fan out” searches • Why specificity and structured content matter more than ever • The role of citations and consensus in AI responses • How platforms like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews choose sources • Why Reddit and user generated content still influence AI answers • The growing tension between AI discovery and publisher business models • Opportunities and risks for media organizations in the AI search era About the 👤 Guest Josh Blyskal • Website: https://www.joshblyskal.com • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-blyskal • X: https://twitter.com/joshblyskal • Speaker Deck: https://speakerdeck.com/joshbly Learn More About Profound • https://www.tryprofound.com About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started. Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to The Media Copilot on Substack, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite app. On YouTube?  Tap the Like button and Subscribe to the YouTube channel. For more AI tools and resources built for media professionals, visit MediaCopilot.ai. Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team  Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0 All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

    47 min

  8. Mar 5

    Building the Newsroom AI Playbook Without Turning Journalism into Slop

    AI is rapidly becoming part of how news is produced, distributed, and discovered. But what does that actually look like inside a newsroom? In this episode of The Media Copilot, host Pete Pachal speaks with Gina Chua, Executive Editor at Large at Semafor and Executive Director of the Tow-Knight Center for Journalism Futures at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Chua shares how Semafor is experimenting with practical AI tools that support journalists in everyday workflows. These include tools for copy editing and proofreading, systems that suggest relevant datasets for charts while a reporter is writing, and tools that help surface related reporting across different outlets and languages. The conversation also explores how newsrooms can organize large volumes of information. At Semafor, interview transcripts from events and panels are integrated into internal systems so reporters can quickly search conversations, locate quotes, and review context directly. Chua emphasizes that these tools are designed to assist newsroom work rather than replace editorial judgment. She also offers a useful way to think about large language models: they are built to work with language, not to verify facts. When used carefully with known text sources, they can help summarize, organize, and analyze information. Beyond newsroom workflows, the discussion turns to the broader shift happening in how people access information. AI tools, chatbots, and automated summaries are increasingly becoming a gateway to news, which raises important questions about trust, verification, and the future role of journalism. This episode looks at how reporters, editors, and media organizations are adapting as AI becomes part of the information ecosystem. What we cover • How Semafor is experimenting with AI tools inside the newsroom • Using transcripts and Slack to search interviews and discussions • Why language models are useful for handling text but not verifying facts • The role of human review in newsroom publishing decisions • How AI interfaces are changing the way audiences find news TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 – Intro: Journalism in the AI Era 02:15 – Gina’s Background & Semafor’s Model 06:00 – How Newsrooms Are Using AI Today 10:00 – Trust in a Synthetic World 14:00 – Transparency & Disclosure 18:30 – AI Tools Inside Reporting 23:00 – The Risk of Information Overload 27:30 – Reinventing the News Business 32:00 – Where AI Helps Most 36:30 – The Future of Journalism About the 👤 Guest GINA CHUA LinkedIn 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginachua X (Twitter) 👉 https://x.com/GinaSKChua Instagram 👉 https://www.instagram.com/gina_chua_nyc  Personal Website / Writing 👉 https://ginachua.me  Author Page (Semafor) 👉 https://www.semafor.com/author/gina-chua —- About the show: To explore more conversations like this and see what’s new, visit the freshly updated Media Copilot website at mediacopilot.ai. You’ll find new episodes, expanded resources, and tools designed for journalists, communicators, and media leaders navigating the fast-changing world of AI. It’s the home base for everything Media Copilot and it’s just getting started. Produced by Pete Pachal and Executive Producer Michele MussoEdited by the Musso Media Team  Music: “Favorite” by Alexander Nakarada, licensed under CC BY 4.0 All rights reserved. © AnyWho Media 2026

    51 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

Hosted by journalist Pete Pachal, The Media Copilot is a weekly conversation with smart people on how AI is changing media, journalism, and the news.

Information

  • Creator
    The Media Copilot
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    91
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © The Media Copilot
  • Show Website
    The Media Copilot

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